As you may have already determined* based on the sheer number of posts I’ve made in the past few days, my mood appears to be creeping up a bit at last. As usual, I’m trying to approach this uptick with caution, so as not to, like, scare it away (or burn out my synapses, or exhaust myself, or overcook my brain, or whichever analogy you like).

The timing is interesting. The whole intersex thing, in my case, means my hormones do interesting (and sometimes horrible) things on what has evolved into a fairly predictable cycle. I would, in fact, rather expect this to be the part of said cycle that makes me (and everyone in a 20-meter radius) miserable. That said, I am not complaining. Complaining about catching this lift is like complaining about catching a taxi in Times Square at 2 AM (I think? Oddly, though I have spent a fair bit of time in the Big Apple, I have never been to Times Square, let alone at 2 AM).

Of course, it’s possible (to belabor my metaphor) that this lift which appears to be driven by a sedate little old lady driver is in fact under the command of the Little Old Lady From Pasadena (Go, Granny; Go, Granny; Go, Granny; Go!). As those of us whose carpool parents were huge Beach Boys fans may recall, “…she drives real fast and she drives real hard.”

So while I am not complaining right now, I reserve the right to complain at a later date.

Speaking of dates!

I love dates. The fruit, I mean. A while ago I bought a 2-pound tub of deglet noor dates at ValuMarket (which, though it sounds like a Quick-E-Mart kind of operation, is in fact an awesome little local grocery chain; the one in my neighborhood is decidedly international in flavor).

At the time (this was several months ago; the dates in question suggest that I use them by 30 June, 2016, so we’re good), I was in the midst of an upswing and not shopping all that carefully and failed to notice that the dates in question are processed with glucose. So now I have all these sugar-coated dates lying around, waiting for a purpose in life … or, well, un-life, I suppose, since the purpose of the sugar is to preserve the dates, which are not living, and perhaps could be considered undead**?

Since I am not really into consuming oceans of refined sugar (regarding which: dates are pretty sugary to begin with, but you eat them whole, fiber and all; it’s the added sugar that’s kind of not my thing), I have been working my way through the dates a little at a time. Last week, I added some to my batch-o-muffins. This morning, I said “screw it” and ate four of them (a portion is about eight) with breakfast.

So, to make a short story unnecessarily long, I’m thinking that the next time I have people over, I am going to make an enormous, enormous date-oriented cake or something in an effort to reduce my household Zombie Date population. I am also thinking I could probably soften them in water (which might also coax some of the added sugar off the dates), chop them up, and make them into bike/ballet fuel of some kind (and then freeze the extras).

If any of you have any recipe suggestions, let me know.

In the future, of course, I shall purchase my dates more carefully.

I make no promises about the duration of this uptick, but I plan to relax and enjoy it while I can.

In other news, our finances are more or less sorted at this point, and I was able to purchase a RAM upgrade for my laptop. Said RAM arrived last night; I dropped it in (which was an incredibly frustrating process; getting the RAM seated correctly in this machine is a huge PITA) and my lappy, unsurprisingly, is like a whole new machine.

I really should’ve done this ages ago.